Sunday 18 February 2018

Brown Ale in the 1950s

It's hard to imagine now, but Brown Ale was a really big deal in the 1950's.

As the Mann's advert below states: "Brown Ale is cbecoming more and more popular with Britain's beer drinkers".


Birmingham Daily Gazette - Thursday 11 September 1952, page 5.
Thouigh I'm sure that "no finer malts" stuff is guff. It implies that the colour came from the malt, whuich it almost certainly didn't.

Mann's weren't the only brewery to use the adjective "rich" to describe their Brown Ale:

Coventry Evening Telegraph - Thursday 24 June 1954, page 31.
This is one of the few Brown Ales that have survived:

Shields Daily News - Wednesday 20 April 1955, page 9.

Interesting the way the advert emphasise that it's good value for money. As you can see in the table below, it was more expensive than most other Brown Ales. Though it was much stronger than the average of about 3% ABV.

I've included this advert, just because it's weird:
Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer - Saturday 20 December 1952, page 7.
Here's what 1950's Brown Ale was really like. Actually quite diverse:

Brown Ale 1952 - 1954
Year Brewer Beer Price per pint OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation colour
1954 Barclay Perkins Doctor Brown Ale 19 1032.6 1010.6 2.85 67.48% 110
1954 Charrington Brown Ale 19 1033.1 1009.1 3.11 72.51% 120
1954 Courage Nut Brown Ale 19 1032.1 1008 3.12 75.08% 110
1953 Duttons Nut Brown Ale 18 1031 1006.1 3.23 80.32% 52
1954 Gibbs Mew Moonraker Brown Ale 16 1034.8 1009.5 3.28 72.70% 135
1954 Ind Coope Nut Brown Ale 19 1030.7 1009.7 2.72 68.40% 80
1956 Mann Brown Ale 22 1035.5 1013.2 2.88 62.82% 115
1955 Mitchell & Butler Sam Brown 23 1036.9 1011.2 3.33 69.65% 85
1954 Newcastle Breweries Brown Ale 26 1048.9 1010 5.06 79.55% 51
1952 Samuel Smith Taddy Ale 15.5 1034.5 1008.5 3.37 75.36% 90
1952 Shipstone Nut Brown Ale 15 1033.3 1006.7 3.45 79.88% 60
1952 Simonds Berry Brown Ale 19 1032 1005.5 3.44 82.81% 60
1952 St. Anne's Well Brown Ale 19 1034.1 1005.1 3.77 85.04% 100
1952 Steward & Patteson Brown Ale 23 1032.5 1010.3 2.87 68.31% 67
1952 Tamplin No.1 Ale 20 1034.1 1009.7 3.16 71.55% 80
1952 Taylor Walker Nut Brown Ale 19 1032.6 1011.7 2.70 64.11% 80
1952 Tennant Bros. Brown Ale 20 1032.5 1012.2 2.62 62.46% 100
1952 Tetley Family Ale 15 1035.5 1009 3.44 74.65% 53
1954 Tollemache Country Brown Ale 19 1032.5 1011.2 2.75 65.54% 90
1954 Truman Trubrown 19 1034.7 1011.9 2.95 65.71% 110
1952 Ushers Trowbridge Brown Ale 17 1033.6 1007.7 3.36 77.08% 80
1953 Ushers Trowbridge Triple Brown 36 1063.4 1013.6 6.50 78.55% 85
1953 Vale of Neath ???? Brown Ale 30 1070.6 1019.3 6.68 72.66% 34
1952 Vaux Double Maxim Ale 23 1049 1009.8 5.10 80.00% 48
1954 Watney Brown Ale 30 1032.8 1010.2 2.92 68.90% 120
1952 Wenlock Nut Brown Ale 19 1032.5 1012.5 2.58 61.54% 80
1954 Whitbread Forest Brown 21 1034.8 1012.2 2.92 64.94% 95
1953 Young & Son Chestnut Brown Ale 26 1055.1 1016.5 5.01 70.05% 250
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.

4 comments:

Chap said...

Ha, ha, ha, you and me
Little brown jug, don't I love thee!

Martyn Cornell said...

Mmm, but what might be called the "Newcastle brown ale family" is totally different from the "Mann's brown ale family" in taste, ingredients, colour, origin - they're two quite separate styles of beer, and it's a great pity Michael Jackson lumped tghem together.

Ron Pattinson said...

Martyn,

in the 1920s and 1930s there was little consistency in the character of Brown Ale from brewery to brewery. Loads of variation in London.

Mike in NSW said...

Interesting to see the ABV of Newcastle Brown and Vaux Double Maxim in those days. At over 5% it's no wonder that on Tyneside (where I grew up and lived until 1968) The Broon was, at one stage, called "Journey into Space" after the popular SF radio show of the time.